


Thunderstorm

by limeta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Hogwarts Fifth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limeta/pseuds/limeta
Summary: Harry Potter is deathly afraid of thunderstorms after Petunia locked him out of his home during one when he was young. When a really bad storm catches him before his fifth year, the horcrux inside Harry calls the main piece of the soul, sensing danger.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 28
Kudos: 276





	Thunderstorm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aricii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aricii/gifts).



Thunderstorm

Harry was six years old when his Aunt Petunia decided that if he was refusing to do chores he should do so outside. He screamed and begged to be left inside. Promised that he'd cook and clean up afterwards, just until the storm outside passed. Shouted even that he didn't have to eat at all, and all that he wanted was to stay inside where it was safe. This fell on deaf ears. Aunt Petunia grabbed him in a tight and unforgiving grip. She managed to haul him out of his closet by holding his ear and pulling him towards the front door that looked to Harry like the gates of hell itself.

Outside lightning blared in a cacophony of retribution. Clouds crashed against each other. A symphony of anger thundered. Rain poured onto Harry's second-hand clothes and how heavy they may have been whilst dry couldn't compare to the weight they were to him when soaking through.

She pushed him outside and when he turned around, closed the door right in his face. His nose hurt. His head hurt. Harry turned around and held onto his wonky and taped together glasses. Big, splotchy drops of rain smeared the glass.

An indescribable lightning broke the clouds, and the scream that followed from the sky caused Harry to jump out of his skin.

''Aunt Petunia, **_PLEASE_**.'' He banged on the front door and cried. It was so loud. He would never forget the betrayal he felt by being denied entry by his own family, beind ignored on their front porch like he was a stray dog or a salesperson, and the loud, inescapable thunder.

Somewhere in his mind it registered that he was causing a scene, and that things would get worse for him if he caused too big of a scene for his aunt and uncle. So, Harry slinked away from the house and tried to find shelter away from the storm.

He wound up running to a small tunnel near a park and hiding inside there. It was cold and damp. Harry breathed in and out quickly and messily, snot and tears mixing. His hands shook as he held his knees and placed his head on top of them, staring out the tunnel to see the heavy rain. When thunder screamed Harry screwed his eyes shut and hoped he wouldn’t die.

* * *

Nine years passed without such a perilous storm happening. Harry, as most teens, tended to repress childhood trauma. Though, honestly, with the amount of trauma he had it was a miracle he had anything to remember.

Dudley was… being perpetually horrible.

Harry looked at him and there was white noise in his head as the other boy spoke and teased him. The whiteness of that noise dipped into crimson and he saw red, he saw so much red when Dudley dared to mention Cedric. He gripped the chain of the swing in a vice, unfaltering grip. It embedded in his skin and ate at it, but it also made him feel.

That day flashed in his mind still. How easily Cedric fell dead. How heavily he weighed when Harry had dragged him back. Harry tried not to think, but he kept getting dragged back. Lord Voldemort flashed in his mind unapologetically, greedily, angrily. He screwed his eyes shut.

Dudley pushed him down first. His friends laughed. Harry gritted his teeth. He lunged for him and pulled his wand out to aim at a not so smug Dudley Dursley. Harry mad a small, knowing ‘ah’ at such a reaction. His friends laughed. They didn’t know what a wand could do.

Green light flashed behind Harry’s eyes. His breath hitched. That painfully cold hand was gripping him. His wand wavered. Dudley was looking at him oddly. Let him. Harry couldn’t care less what he thought of him anymore.

His hands were shaking. He was shaking.

Clouds crashed against each other. The wind began to pick up. A storm was approaching. ‘’No.’’ Harry whispered, remembering another day that was engraved in his memory; one that knocked his knee caps with a sledge-hammer and caused him to stagger away. Horrible realisation came that with rain followed thunder and that Harry, really, really didn’t want to be caught outside again.

He ran.

Dudley ran after him.

* * *

Dudley continued running towards his home, not minding the thunder or the lightning as much as Harry, who took shelter in a tunnel and dry-heaved. His hair was wet and dripping, and yet again his glasses were smeared with droplets. He frantically tried to wipe them clean to be able to see. These glasses were helpful, but he could sense that he needed new ones. Maybe he’d finally man up and take Hermione up on her offer to take him to a magical optometrist.

When a really loud and boisterous thunder cracked across the sky he fell to his knees and held onto the wall, screwing his eyes shut and trying to survive this. It was just thunder, he tried to tell himself, it was just lightning, he begged himself to believe. This couldn’t hurt him.

He tried to think about things that could hurt him that weren’t nearly as childish as being afraid of thunder was, like Voldemort. Yes, the Dark Lord or whatever else title they’d given him over the years.

It was cold in this tunnel. It was so, very cold.

He didn’t want to open his eyes to see what was happening. His wand was with him, at least. But he couldn’t do magic outside. He couldn’t send a patronus for help, but oh how he wished for help.

It was the belief that he was in unscrupulous danger that allowed a part of Harry (a part he was not aware of, mind) to send a signal that there was DANGER.

Harry seemed far too desperate to really care who came to his rescue. As long as he made it out of this tunnel alive.

* * *

Seeing Voldemort for the first time after that night was utterly terrifying. Harry wouldn’t pretend for a single moment that he wasn’t scared as the man emerged. The lower part of his black robe was wet with rain and mud. A look of utter wrath morphed his features. He charged towards him, raising his elegant yew wand and aiming it for him.

His lips moved, but thunder struck whilst he spoke so Harry didn’t hear a single thing. Harry placed a cold, shaky hand across his heart and tried to calm it by breathing, but it only speed up. Lightning criss-crossed on the sky outside; marring the dark clouds like the infamous scar marred his skin.

Voldemort’s white skin looked ethereal in this lighting. He snarled something, but Harry truly couldn’t focus on anything other than the thunder blaring outside or the lightning or the abundant rain that chilled his skin. It was far too cold to be because of a summer thunderstorm. Harry tried, desperately to get his breathing under control. His vision blurred as a spectre moved in front of his eyes, taking deliberately march-like steps.

That white noise came back tenfold harder. He could feel as Voldemort grabbed a hold of the front of his shirt and use all of his strength to lift him up from the ground and slam him against the wall hard. He hit the back of his head against it and finally heard what he was saying: **_‘’Where is it?’’_**

Harry wasn’t able to answer in the time rage overcame Voldemort and he pulled him forward only to snap him back and mercilessly hiss, using their shared language to elicit fear into his already, difficultly beating heart: ‘’Did you think this feeble trap could catch me, Harry Potter? A couple of Dementors are no match for the likes of Lord Voldemort.’’

To be perfectly honest, Harry had absolutely no idea what Voldemort was talking about. He hadn’t seen any Dementors. Though, to be fair, he was overcome with a past traumatic experience that left him paralysed with fear and probably wouldn’t have noticed anyhow.

Voldemort didn’t seem to notice that Harry’s thoughts were elsewhere because he was throttling him, willing him to answer a question he really, honestly didn’t understand to begin with. But, Harry figured if he said this he might get a special treatment with the cruciatus curse. And that was _really_ something Harry wanted to avoid.

Another thing later and Harry was trying not to get cut into pieces by the way Voldemort was pressing his yew wand against Harry’s throat, pushing it so hard that it may puncture through the skin and muscle. ‘’It sent for me, Harry. I am no fool. Do you take me for one?’’

This had absolutely nothing to do with Lord Voldemort. Harry wanted to tell him that, but another round of horrific sound came about from the outside and involuntarily his body tensed up.

Naturally, the egomaniac in front of him took this as a sign of his fear for him. Which existed, but for some strange reason was drowned out by the fear the events outside brought him.

Voldemort’s lips quirked upward in a pleased smirk. ‘’Harry,’’ that voice crooned like some prehistoric bird just before snapping its jaw around prey, ‘’they have left you here as a sacrificial lamb. But I sensed it here. Do not lie now. Tell Lord Voldemort where it is and I shall be merciful. I promise,’’ and no promise from Lord Voldemort was true, Harry remembered that he was dealing with a liar, ‘’that no harm will befall you. It will all end so quickly.’’

Harry didn’t expect he was going to die this fine day. He’d have at least cursed Dudley, underage magic laws be damned.

Voldemort was staring at him, through him. Harry could feel his lecherous magic slithering through his mind, searching. It was uncomfortable and Harry tried not to think about things that would embarrass him, but knowing that he had his mind read made him think of only embarrassing things. God, there were so many ridiculous attempts at romance and being cool in his head, weren’t there?

Harry closed his eyes, wanting to cut this short, but Voldemort slammed him back to the wall again. He must have spelled him lighter, as there was no other way to explain how Voldemort was holding him up with one hand. Probably a feather light charm.

‘’There is a variation on that, actually. Feather light charms do not last long and are meant to be an introductory spell for more complex work. It is NEWT level, however.’’ The unspoken part was that Voldemort believed that Harry would not live to see the day of the NEWT examinations. It was very inconsiderate of him. He’d probably made a bloody timeline in his head, too. Kill Potter, Take Over Ministry, Kill Muggleborns –

‘’Killing all of them is not viable to my plans and my view of the Ministry. I would … intimidate them into conforming. Logically you cannot say what you plan to do to people, else they will call you a megalomaniac. So, I have long-term plans on how to persuade the muggleborns into integrating themselves into magical culture.’’

That sounded eerily like something Thatcher would say.

‘’Do not compare me to that muggle politician.’’

Voldemort was still searching for something in Harry’s head and answering his jumbled thoughts. Harry wanted to laugh, he really did. How could he possibly be calmer in the presence of his mortal enemy than he was moments prior when bared in front of the fucking elements?

Harry tried to squirm out of the way. This was an uncomfortable arrangement. Voldemort hissed at him to stop his squirming and be a good boy soldier and tell him where this mysterious thing was.

‘’I honest to God have no idea what you mean when you ask me that.’’

Crimson pooled into emerald.

Voldemort cursed under his breath because he could tell Harry was telling the truth. He dropped him to the ground and Harry hissed out in pain. This wasn’t how he was expecting his summer vacation to go at all.

The storm had passed. Harry could now focus all of his attention to Voldemort.

‘’One of my things called me here.’’

‘’Things?’’

‘’Yes, things that are important to me.’’

‘’Oh.’’ Harry was thinking that this day really couldn’t get weirder. He was having a civil conversation with Voldemort: ‘’Like your book?’’

‘’Yes.’’

‘’Why are you telling me this?’’

Voldemort was looking at him with a thoughtful expression. It was one of those expressions Hermione had before she decided to do something uncharacteristically dangerous, but justified for the pursuit of academic knowledge. The man of the hour had his hands pressed to his hips as he stared down at Harry.

Harry was much too exhausted to get up, so he simply curled his knees to his chest and placed his arms on them while staring up at the man who killed his parents. Today had to be a fever dream. There was no other explanation.

‘’You have a phobia of thunder.’’

‘’Apparently.’’

Voldemort nodded slowly, looking towards the calm sky outside of the tunnel and the wet ground littered with muddy puddles. He squinted at the sun that was beginning to peek out from the murky clouds. ‘’You mean to tell me that thunder is more terrifying than the cruacitus curse.’’ This was a nod to the graveyard.

Harry clutched at his wand and thought about attacking, but if he did – he didn’t think he could win. Voldemort was so effortlessly good at magic. It was annoying. ‘’Apparently.’’

‘’ _You_ called me here, Harry.’’

‘’I did not.’’

Voldemort turned back to look at him. ‘’You did.’’ There was no room for argument. Harry was too tired to argue anyhow. Let the man have his delusions.

They were staring at each other in what could only be described as jarringly uncomfortable silence. Voldemort broke it. ‘’This complicates things.’’

‘’How so?’’

‘’Well, the prophecy has to be fulfilled, but if my theory is right about how you called me here… that is… not on the table… anymore.’’

‘’Prophecy?’’

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at Harry and told him that there was no room for jokes right now. He berated Harry and said that this was a serious situation that affected them both in dire and not easily explainable ways. How it was very inconsiderate of him to pretend that the whole balance of their magical society wasn’t influenced by aforementioned prophecy.

‘’I was going to win if I hadn’t gone to your house to kill you.’’ This was the most ridiculous thing Harry had heard come out of the man’s mouth and he had heard quite a lot of ridiculous things come out of his mouth.

‘’Bet you wish you hadn’t gone to my house, then.’’ Harry didn’t curse his sense of humour; not really, he just cursed his lack of general sense of survival. Because Voldemort looked like he wanted to slap him very hard. Yet he didn’t. Which was surprising. He had seemed rather cruciatus-happy at the graveyard.

‘’You really have no idea what the prophecy is.’’

‘’Nope.’’

Voldemort, deeming this a very long and arduous conversation, decided to sit down. He grunted as he did this and Harry was reminded of the fact that this man was incredibly old. Not Dumbledore old, but still. He was definitely a senior citizen by muggle standards.

‘’Stop likening me to a pensior, child.’’

‘‘Stop reading my thoughts if you do not like what I think of you. It’s easier for you than for me.’’

Voldemort let out a begrudging sigh before asking Harry what he does know about why he targeted him. ‘’You must know something.’’

‘’I know you’re a murderer and my parents were fighting on the opposite side.’’

‘’This is not at all why I attacked them that night.’’ Lord Voldemort fumed to be compared to some petty revenge-lusty wizard who wanted to put the Dumbledore supporters in their place. That was Bella, for goodness’ sake. He had more nuance, more meaning to all of his appearances.

So, in a lot of words that stemmed from finally clearing the air between him and this prophesied enemy of his, Voldemort explained what the prophecy entailed (how he hadn’t yet heard it in full, mind), and how this was why this entire situation between them happened.

‘’Can I say something without you getting mad or cursing me?’’

‘’I am starting to think that everything that comes out of your mouth is aggravating, Harry, but fine.’’

‘’Are you a fucking idiot?’’ Harry managed to insult Lord Voldemort in a way not many had managed. He looked honestly taken aback by the question.

‘’Pardon?’’

‘’You trusted a prophecy that was made in a pub for a fucking job interview?’’

It really did sound stupid when one put it into these terms. Harry realised that unlike Voldemort, he really did have a power the Dark Lord knew not. He had Hermione Granger to instil in him the belief that Divination was unforgettable hogwash that didn’t deserve to be considered a branch of magic. In lieu of this, Harry really didn’t believe in prophecies or Divination much. Hermione knew what she was doing all the time and he trusted her.

So, in layman’s terms, Harry relayed what Hermione had told him about Divination. ‘’Divination’s shite.’’

Voldemort nodded, accepting that this was Harry’s opinion. ‘’This is unexpected, but it suits my needs.’’

‘’That is the most Slytherin thing you’ve said all day.’’

In parseltongue: _‘’This is the most Slytherin thing I’ve said all day.’’_

He replied: _‘’So, you seem convinced I called you here. Why?’’_

Secrets were so much easier to be shared when spoken in a language barely 1% of the magical world knew to speak: _‘’Harry, I shall attempt to spare your feelings as best as possible whilst explaining this bit about my life. You are what we in the Dark Lord community like to call: a fucking accident.’’_

 _‘’Is my aunt in the Dark Lord community by any chance?’’_ Animosity be damned, Harry enjoyed Voldemort’s sense of humour.

_‘’You are a horcrux. This is a … you’re really too slow to understand the specifics of how it is made, but a piece of my soul is lodged in you. When you were so deathly terrified of a –I admit very intimidating- thunderstorm, the horcrux called the original back to it. That is me.’’_

Harry stood up and decided that he was really having too much information getting crammed in his head. Voldemort pushed himself to his feet and followed after him, telling him that he had no idea that he was a horcrux. That it’s very difficult to make a horcrux into a human being and that he would never waste his own soul by experimenting like that.

‘’Take it out of me.’’ Harry commanded.

Voldemort told him to watch his tone.

Harry repeated, in the most saccharine tone he could: ‘’Get it the fuck out of me.’’

‘’I would if I knew _how_.’’

‘’You’re fucking smart, figure it out!’’

‘’Listen here you _brat_ –‘’

‘’If you won’t figure it out I’ll go to someone who will!’’

‘’That mudblood of yours isn’t smarter than me! You just think she is because she’s just academically loud!’’

‘’You are half the academic she is!’’

Yet again, Lord Voldemort managed to get insulted in a visceral sort of way he was convinced he’d outgrown. But that scathing comment hurt.

‘’Make an unbreakable vow not to act on the prophecy.’’

Harry turned. ‘’Why?’’

‘’You already do not wish to act on it. I would prefer not to try to kill my own soul container. It is a win-win situation.’’

‘’You’ll take it out then?’’

‘’I promise to try and find a way that will safely return my soul to my own body so you can continue being infatuated by quidditch players on your own free time.’’

‘’I want insurance that my friends won’t be harmed.’’

‘’I have been in your head, Harry, I know you and I have a very different idea what constitutes a friend. I’m giving you five people.’’

‘’Ten, no –fifteen – wait…’’

**_‘’Five.’’_ **

‘’That is not enough. How about seven?’’

‘’Are you making fun of me now by picking a number that is lauded by divination?’’

‘’A bit.’’

‘’Five.’’

‘’Ten.’’

‘’Eight is my last offer.’’

‘’Ten.’’

‘’You’re getting six and you will be happy you ungrateful child.’’

After even more deliberation, Harry got his ten people Voldemort was not allowed to hurt. They shook on it afterwards.


End file.
